Rassegna Stampa

The Biden administration announced new programs on May 10 to incentivize dairy farmers and workers to collaborate with public health efforts to investigate and mitigate the H5N1 avian influenza outbreak among dairy cattle. Farmers and agriculture officials have called such testing “overreach,” telling public health officials to “back off.” But the Biden administration’s new programs are a first step toward creating trust and collaboration between public health and industry.

Farms don’t want to be identified as H5N1 hotspots for fear that they might end up with milk or beef they can’t sell. The industry has already suffered a financial blow with affected dairies taking as much as a 20% hit to their income, and U.S. cattle prices are dropping as traders fear the outbreak could hurt demand.